‘3-D Check­ers — The Next Gen­er­a­tion’ — Paul Glover © 1989 1990­ — 2011

3D Check­ers relies on all the offi­cial rules for Check­ers. This includes the rule that a player must cap­ture, when able to do so, rather than make a non-capturing move. The player(s) that have no pieces or can­not move loses.

The only change to the game is the fact that there are three more boards added. The game also may be played by 2, 3, or 4 play­ers in teams or every­one for them­selves.
When play­ing 3 play­ers the black is removed and the blue pieces are put along the
back row of all 4 boards. However because of the dimen­sional factor, there is a need
for additional instructions as to how the pieces move dimensionally.

Teams: –Black / Green– vs –Red / Blue–.
(Or: Player-1 plays Black/Green and Player-2 plays Red/Blue)
Order of Play: Black moves 1st, then Red, Blue, Green in that order at all times.

To speed up the game, board lev­els become closed and as noted in the pic­ture, there is another piece called the Prince. Make sure the ‘dou­ble black cor­ner’ (#1, #5) is on your right. This rule also applies to chess.

The Arrange­ment of Men to start the game for Black, on the black squares (#1 to #12) on level ‘A’ (left to right) and #1–4 on ‘B’ level. The Princes are placed on squares 1­4 on ‘A’ level. The Red pieces are placed sim­i­larly on the flipped side of the ‘A and B’ board level. The Blue and Green pieces are placed on board level ‘D and C’ as shown in the pic­ture. Blue is placed so that it is under­neath Black. Green is placed so that it is under Red.

Uncrowned Piece may only move for­ward on black squares as in reg­u­lar checkers. However going straight up/down does not constitute a backward movement.

Cap­ture of a piece is as in reg­u­lar check­ers for all pieces on the flat board, however
when capturing from one level to another it may:

• Cap­ture the oppos­ing piece that is directly above the square that it is on, and land
  on the square that is directly above the oppos­ing piece, there­fore going from level
  ‘A’ cap­tur­ing the one on level ‘B’, and land­ing on level C (A1 x B1 land­ing on C1).
• Cap­ture the oppos­ing piece that is diag­o­nally for­ward and above the square that it
  is on. For exam­ple:
  A Green checker on D25(near bot­tom left corner):..
  • could cap­ture an oppos­ing piece that was on D22 and land on D18.
  • ­could cap­ture an oppos­ing piece that was on C22 and land on B18.
  • ­could cap­ture an oppos­ing piece that was on C25 and land on B25.

  (This would apply both going up and down in order to cap­ture a piece or pieces.)

Crown­ing of a piece is the same as in stan­dard check­ers (by mov­ing your piece to
the opposite side of the board to any of the four levels).

• When a CAPTURED move brings a Sin­gle Checker to King’s row, he may also
  con­tinue cap­tur­ing directly above or below the square that it is sit­ting on (the
  square on Kings’ row). He can­not leave Kings’ row until he is crowned. He may
  then leave on the fol­low­ing move. The KING may now move for­ward and
  backwards.

Clos­ing of a Board Level is described as “Closed” when there is only one
Checker, King, Prince or Crowned Prince of any colour left on that board level. The
first level that can close will be ‘A’ or ‘D’.

• No Sin­gle Checker or King may go to a closed level. That last Checker piece on
  the closed level, is frozen there until, when he chooses to (or forced, by hav­ing to
  jump), must only move ver­ti­cally or ver­ti­cally diag­o­nal to a level that has checker
  pieces on it (this does not apply to a Prince or Crowned Prince).
• When the last piece on a closed level is moved off, there will be no pieces on that
  level. That level is now con­sid­ered FINISHED, and no piece may go to a
  finished level. This is shown, by putting a small piece of paper on that level.
• For a level to be closed, it will be one of two things:
  1.  There will be no pieces on any other lev­els above it. OR
  2.  There will be no pieces on any other levels below it.

PRINCE
There are four Princes per side that are placed on King’s row, level ‘A and D’.
Black / Blue:  #1 ­ #4
Red / Blue:  #29  #32

A Prince Cap­tures and Moves as in stan­dard checkers, ON A LEVEL.
When cap­tur­ing from one level to another, he may move only one level at a time,
land­ing on the same level as the cap­tured piece. For example: a Green Prince on ‘D29’
can cap­ture a Red piece on ‘C25’ land­ing on ‘C22’. It can move on a Closed Level.

A Prince Mov­ing to a Closed Level re­opens that level. This is because there
are now two pieces on that level. It cannot move to a finished level.

A Crowned Prince (Cap­tures after reach­ing the oppos­ing side on any level)
has a checker piece put under it. It may now also cap­ture the same as a Checker
KING. It thus now has a choice. For example: a Green Crowned Prince on ‘D29’ can
cap­ture a Red piece on ‘C25’ landing on ‘C22’ or land on ‘B22’.  That same piece on
‘D29’ could now also cap­ture straight up, capturing ‘C29’ and land­ing on ‘B29’
(D29 x B29) or capturing straight up/down from the square that it is sitting on.

A Crowned Prince Mov­ing to a Closed Level re­-opens that level. This is
because there are now two pieces on that level. It can­not move to a fin­ished level. A
Crowned Prince may also move freely on a Closed Level.

Recap on the above writ­ten:  All pos­si­ble moves, cap­tures and the Prince.

As noted ear­lier in the game ‘Chess – The Future Gen­er­a­tion’:
“It is very strongly rec­om­mended to use a  white stone  or object to indi­cate who’s
move it is. In fact the move is NOT com­plete until the white stone is passed to the next
player, which says: ‘That is my move!’ This is done because every­one can and will lose
tract of who’s turn it is to play”

Checker Nota­tion shows the start of a move and the end of the move. This can
be done by stat­ing the board level 1st with a cap­i­tal letter, followed by where the
checker is located. – Then, where the checker is going to stop (Board level, checker
location). The start of a game is shown this way:

Notice how Green cap­tures Blue going straight up from D22 to B22.

When there are only Three Play­ers (my favorite), Black is taken out and
Blue is stretched out on the King’s row on all four levels. The four Princes are placed
on B1, B2, B3 and B4 as shown below. Red goes 1st fol­lowed by Blue and then Green.
(If you know what you are doing, Blue has the advan­tage)

As noted before make sure
that all the boards are fac­ing the same way
(the dou­ble cor­ner 28, 32 is on the right side).